


Photographs

by herstorystartedhere



Series: FitzSimmons Multiply [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Ed Sheeran - Freeform, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 21:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3356414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herstorystartedhere/pseuds/herstorystartedhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma thinks about her life with Fitz and all the great times they had together while she is waiting for Fitz to come home from a mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photographs

**Author's Note:**

> Happy pre-valentines day! Thought I would post a story at day early, and its probably one of my favorite things I have ever created. The inspiration is the Ed Sheeran song “Photograph”, and I tried to incorporate the imagery of that into the story. I also listened to it on repeat while I was writing, so I highly encourage listening to it. I might actually make a whole series of fics from the songs on the Multiply CD. Enjoy, and tell me what you think!

Simmons never considered herself a romantic type. Hell, she was quite the opposite—very type A, serious, has a plan, doesn't get distracted. Fitz, ironically, was also very serious and methodological. How was it that she was so attached?

Fitz was everything to her. He was the first thing she saw in the morning. His hugs were the last thing that she felt at night. The sky’s hue reminded her of his eyes. The plaid flannel she wore in the mornings made her turn at every mirror. Even her bloody phone, with its state-of-the-art technological additions reminded her of how he had painstakingly improved all of the phones after taking them to encrypt. Aside from all of this, of course, were the photographs.

There was almost an entire wall in their flat that was aptly called “The FitzSimmons Timeline” that was a master collage of their entire lives. It started on one side of the room with their Academy days together. There were photos of their graduation, their lab days, their award presentations, their Sci-Ops lab, their first Christmas and of course the Bus. It was a tender reminder of how much of their lives had been with and revolved around each other. They went on mission every now and again alone, though they were usually together. Simmons loved walking from the beginning of the wall to the end, almost as if she was reliving her life with Fitz. Yep, she was becoming even more sentimental.

Halfway through the Sci-Ops section, she noticed that there was a something bulged under the photo of them in their matching lab coats. Carefully, Simmons removed the frame from the wall and opened up the back to retrieve the mystery paper. It revealed itself to be another picture, this time of Simmons pouring chemicals with her nose crinkled in laughter and her eyes squinted closed. On the back of the picture, Fitz’s handwriting filled the empty space with a felt tip pen:

_Simmons and I got our assignment to work with a non-lethal way to disarm enemy troops. It seems that Coulson himself was concerned with all of the casualties in the field, so our section of Sci-Ops was put on the case. Simmons was so excited to get to be a part of something bigger than a simulated test sample in a classroom! Sure, we’ve done some projects since graduation, but this was the first real one. It makes me grin from ear to ear to see her so exultant. She loves her work as much as mine and I’m honored to get the opportunity to work with such a distinguished and enthusiastic scientist._

Simmons grinned, remembering the memory. Had Fitz really thought this of her? She put the back on the photo frame, leaving the extra photo out. When she returned the photo to the wall, however, she decided to look into her suspicion. She ended up being correct; a lot of the pictures had a “bonus picture” in the back. Turns out, Fitz had been writing down his memories of them since the Academy, and most of these revelations were on the back of candid photos of her. She had a stack of between twenty and thirty pictures and notes from Fitz sitting on the coffee table. One by one, she read about their adventures in the Boiler Room, of their graduation, their short-lived cat. There was even a short note about the U2 concert she had dragged him to a few years ago when they were in a flat in the UK working for their Sci-division. He had written nothing other than “Tonight was a bloody waste of time”, but it was sweet to remember the night. The candid photo in question was her rocking a vintage U2 sweatshirt over her button down from work that day. She was holding the tickets and had her mouth open in a frozen fangirl scream. To be honest, she hadn’t liked the concert much either. She wasn’t a music fan. However, just getting out of the super-powered brain world with Fitz made it a favorite of her memories.

Each one of the photos sent a shiver of giddy butterflies through her stomach as she remembered a Fitz from long ago. Simmons ended up sliding all of the writing and visual aids into a double sided photo album that she had. Her mom had given it to her before she left for the Academy, telling her to “make memories”. This was before sappy-Jemma had taken over, but it had been collecting dust in her closet. Finally, she looked wistfully at her favorite picture on the entire wall. It was a selfie she took of the two of them on their first date, under a lamp post at 6th back in New York. She was looking directly into the camera and Fitz was kissing her cheek and smiling. Thinking back to that night, she laughed a little. They had been friends for over 7 years at that point, and they decided to go to a nice dinner in the city that never sleeps. It had been snowing, which added to the charm of walking around the city at night. He even bought her roses, which she kept in the Bus lab until the team had gotten back to the Playground base. That was also the night she told Fitz that she loved him. And she still did, every single minute of the day. She missed him.

Later that night, she called his phone and left a message. “Hey, its Simmons. I know you’re off doing your engineering secret spy work, but I miss you. Love you!” Then, she went to their bed and tried to fall asleep. It was always so hard to be worrying about him for a few days at a time, just wondering if she would ever see him again. She had just started drifting off to her blissful darkness when she heard a noise outside. Grabbing a flashlight and putting on the flannel, she crept out to see what it was. She tried to desperately shove her hopes of a best case scenario down and hoped to keep it there, at the pit of her stomach. When the door swung open, however, it was none other than the brilliant Fitz himself. She dropped the flashlight and ran to him, flinging her arms around his neck. He buried his face into her hair, which was flying free and wavy as it naturally was.

“I missed you,” Simmons whispered, pressing her lips around his face. His eyes had never been bluer, the emotion in them never so intense as it was now. He hugged her close, kissing the top of her head and rocking her back and forth. He was still wearing his tactical gear, vest and all, but he never looked so attractive. “I love you, “ she said, “I don’t want you to go on another mission for a while.” He pulled back a bit to look into her eyes.

“Jemma, I don’t ever want to leave you again. I love you so much.” He kissed her lips slowly. “You’ve become a bit of a sap, haven’t you? Where’d the practical Simmons go, I need to get out of this scratchy gear.” He winked at her, and she led him into their bedroom so he could get rid of the extra layers.

“I missed you so bloody much,” she breathed, kissing him between his varying states of undress. “You aren’t leaving my sight for a few days.” He was down to a white t-shirt and jeans, which he traded in for a pair of flannel trousers and his thermal.

“Jemma, I missed you too. I missed you more than I ever have. I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he said, “I wanted to be here more than anything.” He stepped into the bathroom briefly to wash his face.

When Fitz came back in, Simmons immediately threw herself at him, kissing his lips and winding her fingers through his hair. He followed suit and carried her over to their bed, which was still warm from Simmons trying to sleep in it. “Never leave me,” she murmured, straddling his lap and sliding off his shirt so she could be closer. She locked her ankles behind his back. “Promise me.”

“I promise, Jem.” He kept kissing her face and neck, soaking up every second of her presence. He started leaning back, swing Simmons’ legs from around him to next to him so she would be on top. She pinned him and stared at him thoughtfully for a few seconds.

“I’m serious, Fitz. These last few days have been hell. HELL. I couldn’t stop worrying about if you were going to be safe, out there probably in some Russian wilderness or—“ Fitz didn’t let her finish. He had gotten a lot stronger from training for his field assessment. He reached up and brought her lips down onto his. She submitted, letting him fill her senses. Eventually, she got tired of propping herself up and lay down on his chest. Both her flannel and her nightshirt were gone by now, and she listened to his heartbeat and his breathing. Once her pulse went back to normal, she got up briefly to pull the covers over them. With Fitz at her back and his arms around her, she fell asleep easily, his face lost in her hair and his breath on her neck.

The next morning, Simmons retrieved the flannel so she felt halfway decent. She left Fitz in bed (God knows he needed some comfortable sleep) and made some pancakes from scratch. She was just finishing cutting the strawberries when two arms wrapped around her waist. “Morning Simmons,” Fitz said, grabbing a strawberry to swirl it in the sugar. She swatted his wrist.

“Fitz, you’re going to ruin the sugar!”

“So? Life’s short, let me relish the good things in life.” He spun her around and put his hands on either side of the counter. “I thought carpe diem-Jemma was here now? Get your personalities straight.” She kissed his lips, still sweet with sugar.

“Help me carry all of this to the table. Then we’ll talk.” She grabbed the steeping tea kettle and two mugs. “Honestly, Fitz.”

They sat down with their pancakes, berries, and tea at the kitchen table. “So,” she started between bites, “how was your mission?”

“Pretty much as expected. We were up in Norway, actually, working on recovering some more of that Asguardian technology. That place is a proverbial gold mine.” He took a sip of his tea and smiled. “You would have loved it. Once we pass our field tests, we can probably go on more missions together. I don’t like not knowing what you’re up to.” Simmons rolled her eyes.

“Oh please, Fitz. As if you’re the only one.”

“Well,” he asked thoughtfully, “what did you do while I was gone?”

Simmons froze. Should she tell him about the photographs? Was it a secret? She thought back to the times that were frozen in the images, their unblinking, forever young faces on the wall. Their entire lives were mapped out on that wall, just waiting for someone to relive their stories like books in a library. Memories of their first kiss, of their first meeting when they were sixteen, of them at concerts in ripped jeans and button ups and in lab coats. Happy.

“Just waiting for you to come home.”


End file.
